In the first post in this series I introduced an accepted list of Employability Skills i.e.
- An interest in, and active commitment to, Personal Development
- Communication and Interpersonal Skills
- Versatility and Adaptability
- Problem Solving Skills
- Team Working Skills
- Commercial Awareness
- Role-related Technical Skills
We've looked at how overtly selling the personal development angle available from this list can be a great way of avoiding scepticism in a target population and encouraging motivation for the learning initiative. In this final post I'm going to suggest that experiential content is by far the best way to address the whole list for the benefit of both employer and participants.
My confidence that selecting and delivering experiential activities is the best approach is based on just how many of the items on this list are soft-skills. This definition means that they are not simply cognitive skills that can be learned through reading, or watching video, they need to be rehearsed and practiced in settings that are both safe, and create scenarios that are reasonable equivalents of where the skills will be needed beyond the classroom. The first five items on the list are very largely soft-skills based although some context-building will be needed to help define the appropriate utilisation of these skills. They fit most methodologies that are based on experiential activity - to the extent that if you visit the new RSVP Design website (link) these correspond to the categorisation of our tools and search terms. This should offer a broad range of tools that can be matched to e.g. duration and group size with confidence that the learning outcomes will enhance Employability.
The final two items on the list - Commercial Awareness and Role Related Technical Skills may also be addressed experientially, although it's more likely you'll want to use a hybrid approach of traditional methods for hard skills development coupled with rehearsal space offered by experiential tools. Activities such as Narrow Margins, Pressure Point and Minefield are among our tools that deliver strong messages and learning around these areas; and all of them will respond to the 'sensitisation' or 'reinforcement' sequencing approaches I covered in previous posts in this series. If in doubt about what might work please get in touch......
